American, Peruvian and French paleontologists have discovered thefirst extinct penguin with remains of scales and feathers in good condition. This fossil of36 million years, found in the Paracas National Reserve (Peru), shows that the feathers of the now known giant penguin werereddish brown and gray, different from the black and white “tuxedo-like” plumage of today’s penguins.
“Before we found this fossil, we had no evidence of what extinct penguins were like,” says Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at the Jackson School of Earth Sciences in Austin (USA) and lead author of the study published today. onScience. The fossil of the speciesIncayacu paracasensisit was five feet tall and shows that there was an early evolution of the shape of the fins and feathers. However, the current penguin color pattern is “probably” a more recent innovation.
Like modern penguins and unlike other birds, the feathers on the wings ofIncayacu paracasensisthey had a radically modified shape, very tight and accumulated one on top of the other, forming rigid and narrow fins. Their body feathers had wide barrels, a feature that modern penguins can stylize their bodies.
The colors of the giant penguin
Certain colors in bird feathers come from the size, shape, and arrangement of nanostructures calledmelanosomas. To reconstruct the colors of the penguin fossil feathers, Matthew Shawkay and Liliana D? Alba, study co-authors and researchers at the University of Akron (USA), have compared the melanosomes obtained from the fossil with a data bank on birds. current to deduce its color, other than black.
According to the scientists, the unique size, shape and arrangement of melanosomes in today’s penguins alter the microstructure of feathers at the nano and microscale.Melanin contained within melanosomes gives feathers resistance to wear and tear. However, it is also possible that the colors of the penguins have changed for entirely different reasons, related to the later appearance of primary predators of extinct penguins, such as seals, or other changes in the seas of the late Cenozoic.
“Information about the color of extinct organisms can reveal clues about their ecology and behavior,” says Jakob Vinther, co-author and researcher at Yale University (USA). ? It is simply very good to be able to know the color of an extraordinary extinct organism, such as the fossil of a giant penguin ,? adds the scientist.
